SEGMENT: CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, FAMILY ACTIVITIES, & WEATHER
Bert Aikman>UIS Collection A's>UIS Collection, Segment 1
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- CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
- Teacher called students to his desk to recite. Discusses desks & seating (2 students per desk). Teacher's desk in back of room. Later on desks had inkwells for pens. Had to give definitions of every word spelled. This helped Bert when he went on to work for telegraph office. School on half acre that belonged to township.
- TRANSPORTATION
- No stable for those who rode horses. Students who rode made their own stable lean-to out of pine-board. Bert's family always walked. Dad came with 2 horses sometimes when weather was bad.
- WEATHER
- Never too bad to cancel school. Remembers 6-7ft deep drifts. Wore boots & woolen socks. Never got "frosted" (frostbitten) feet.
- ORGANIZATIONS
- Seldom did parents have meetings with teachers.
- FAMILY ACTIVITIES
- Father went through 8th grade. He was a great reader. Neighbors would come to Bert's father to read the Toledo Blade newspaper. He loved to read. Read the Bible to the family. No libraries closer than Decatur or St. Louis. A neighbor got the complete works of C. Dickens & dad read entire volumes. These were big books with big type. Never had magazines or religious magazines.
- CHURCH
- Had religious papers at church. Father was Superintendent of Sunday School down south at New Hope Baptist Church. Talks of moving of Waggoner Church to town of Waggoner after railroad went through. Did not crack a plaster when they moved it. Wonderful lumber in that church.
